People Applaud This Worker Who Maliciously Complied With Boss’s Demands To Work 9 To 6 After Getting Scolded For Leaving 10 Minutes Early
While you can argue that malicious compliance is great no matter how you look at it, the work-related ones are definitely among the top in the subreddit.
Just think about it: it feeds into what many break the system-minded people yearn for in a story, all the while showing that the little guys also have power in a corporation that has overstepped the line a bit too much. Best part, it’s all without breaking a single corporate rule, so the boss-man can’t do anything about it.
And the simpler the demand, the more satisfying it feels. Like this employee’s bosses’ demands to stick to the company’s 9 to 6 policy after they allowed themselves to leave 10 minutes early because they’d already worked 4 hours overtime that week. But it seems that was not acceptable. OK, then.
More Info: Reddit
Apparently, some managers see a problem with folks leaving work 10 minutes early, completely ignoring hours of overtime earlier that week
Image credits: nappy (not the actual photo)
So, Reddit user u/aineslis had a story they decided to share with the r/MaliciousCompliance community. The story goes that some years ago, OP used to work an ordinary, salaried 40 hours a week job in banking in Europe.
The job was known to have some overtime involved—unpaid overtime that seemingly people were OK with—that you’d think would work in a I scratch your back, you scratch mine way and so timekeeping would be a bit more lax. It was not.
But having a schedule-fixated manager isn’t a bad thing—you can have some fun with it in the form of malicious compliance
Image credits: aineslis
It also didn’t help that OP’s assertive and confident personality was what irked the senior manager quite a bit. All of this culminated in a stern talking to after OP, having worked 4 extra hours to get stuff done, took off from work 10 minutes early later that same week.
After the weekend, OP was called in for the said stern talking to with the manager and senior manager. They confronted OP about those ten minutes, saying they needed permission to leave early. At first, OP thought this was a joke, but was reassured that it was, in fact, not in any way a comedic endeavor. OP was told that their work hours are 9 to 6, not a minute later or earlier. Well, then, aye-aye, captain! Cue malicious compliance.
A Redditor was reprimanded for leaving 10 minutes early because they thought time was lax and 4 hours of unpaid overtime meant something
Image credits: aineslis
Image credits: antonio (not the actual photo)
Some time later, there was this seemingly important end of something meeting that OP had to partake in. They showed up, just as instructed, at 9 o’clock sharp for the workday. Management had already started detecting things they deemed odd in OP—things that went against an obsessively loyal yet equally toxic work ethic.
After a stern talking to, OP decided they had to comply with the 9 to 6 rules on more than just a normal level—mayhaps better on a malicious one
Image credits: aineslis
Despite these signs of OP actively forming a work-life balance, it all became very clear in the evening when that serious online meeting took place. The clock was slowly ticking closer to 6PM and OP was tracking it like a panther visually follows its prey in the safari right before it strikes.
So, here came Friday, which meant there was a meeting that would most definitely overstay its welcome, which was perfect for our hero
Image credits: aineslis
Image credits: Trailers of the East Coast (not the actual photo)
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. 6PM. OP spoke up. One of the managers stopped dead in their verbal tracks to see what OP had to say. “It’s 6 pm here. My day is over.” Confusion followed. “As per my management, my working hours are 9AM to 6PM, so I must leave now. Have a great weekend, and we’ll catch up on Monday!” Screen slam. 6:04PM, OP left the building.
Needless to say, both boss-man and senior boss-man (the two boss-people present in that disciplinary meeting about the 10 minutes) were dumbfounded by what had happened. It was “a glorious sight” for OP to see them staring them down in disbelief as they bolted.
In fact, OP even had an idea to apologize for staying 4 minutes over the given work time frame, but figured it’d be too passive-aggressive, so they just left.
As soon as the meeting started, the employee was tracking the time furiously, making sure they saw the clock strike 6PM
Image credits: aineslis
Nobody seemed to speak of this ever again, and everyone working directly and closely with OP learned that they couldn’t expect them to work 10+ hour shifts any more. So, they also made changes accordingly, and things like end-of-month reporting processes were pushed earlier in the month so that there would be OP-dependent reporting work to discuss in the meeting in the first place. Win!
And Redditors thought this was delicious malicious compliance. Not only did it include a satisfying resolution to the story, but it also made a difference—people actually adjusted so that reporting would go smoother than before. In fact, OP shared in the comments that their relationship with coworkers actually improved.
The second 6PM came, OP cut off the speaker, said they were legging it, and did just that, leaving management extremely surprised
Image credits: aineslis
Others shared their stories, whether it was a work-life balance aspect, or another way of maliciously complying with work schedules. Yet others discussed how overtime is still a thing in a corporately conscious world where people understand their rights and assess the situation accordingly.
Whatever the case, the post got a bit over 30,000 upvotes, 96% of which were from thumbs-up kind of people, and earned over 80 Reddit awards. You can check it all out in context right here.
But before you click or tap (or whatever) that hyperlink, keep scrolling. There’s gonna be a comment section with your name on it… wait, no, a comment section where, after you have shared your thoughts on the story, you will most certainly have your name on it. Do that. Also smash that upvote button. We’re gonna love you even more.
A culture in any community will develop over time.Unpaid overtime is just the same, if employees accept it, the managers will keep pushing until they are pushed back. Once worked in a factory. They didn't pay overtime and expected the job to be done. I walked off the floor, about half an hour before the job was finished, they couldn't believe it. But I said if it's only half an hour you won't mind paying it then eh? We were always paid overtime after that.
I'm a substitute teacher in a U.S public school doing a long term substitute job, approximately 1/3 of the school year. We get paid for 7.5 hours per day. No overtime allowed. We also get paid less than 1/2 a first year teachers' salary, no benefits. After getting burned by administration on my last long-term substitute job, I set some pretty hard boundaries. If I can't do it during my contract hours, then it doesn't get done or another staff member has to do it.
School administrators love to pull the "it's for the kids" line. And I'm not totally heartless; I have done some stuff outside the hours, but it was to meet my own expectations.
Load More Replies...
That last paragraph is the real take home message. I had a great manager whose mantra was "lack of planning on your part is not an emergency on ours". She told every client this. Our team also had the best metrics in the company by a long shot. The first time a new client would try to do some project at the last minute, she'd pop out the mantra and send us all home. They'd complain and get switched to another team. However, all of them would come back to us within 2-3 months with a better attitude. They realized if you did things on her timetable, the end product was cheaper, an order of magnitude better, and their own people happier.
My first long term boss (also my father-in-law) had the view that if the client paid enough, overtime was an option. I was young, newly wedd and it was in construction. We racked up insane overtime payments some months due to clients not planning.
Load More Replies...
PSA for any USA readers. In the US, being a salaried employee does NOT mean it is "obvious" you don't get overtime pay. It is important to know if your position is salary exempt or non-exempt. This became an issue at one employer I worked at. Nutshell: Exempt is for management level stuff. Typically higher ups getting paid bigger bucks for being available whenever. Me and other 'normal' employees were non-exempt. Or we were after the IRS / labor got on our employer. But we did enjoy no time clock / be an adult and put in 40 hours a week. What is described above would never happen at that job and I really liked the employer overall.
The entire concept of middle management should be set on fire. It serves ZERO worthwhile functions. That's why it's such a defunct field: It's full of people who, due to having no actual use in the flow of work, realize they themselves are expendable and therefore should invent ways to appear useful.
Managers are happy to ask you to manage your time better when it suits them, but then are surprised Pikachu face when you do it to suit yourself.
When I wrangled software at a good-sized USA financial firm, wage-earning "non-professional staff" (clerks etc) punched a time clock and were paid overtime, while higher-status "professional salaried staff" (programmers, managers, et al) worked whatever unpaid overtime their bosses demanded -- in the office, or remotely from home or wherever. That was the corporate reality there
Yes. And, for our non-US pandas, that is legal in the US. There is a classification called “salaried exempt” which means that you are paid a fixed salary (though you may get bonuses) and are exempt from overtime laws. Employers are allowed to use this classification for employees that do a lot of their own decision making in the execution of their jobs. So engineering, IT, management, and the like are often given this classification. In a good organization, they are flexible and don’t closely track your time. If I leave in the middle of the day for a doctor’s appointment, or take off early when I’ve hit a good stopping point, no one cares because I’m getting my projects done on time, and there are also those days when I’m working well over 8 hours. We have teams in other countries and have regular meetings outside of core hours. It’s acknowledged in a good organization that flexibility goes both ways, but it is not enforced by labor laws.
Load More Replies...
Time keepers. They are the bane of any good employee. The bad ones abuse the clock and come late take long breaks or many breaks and leave early. The good ones come early and get chewed out for clocking in too soon. Then they can't get to their breaks and work and eat at lunch at their desk. Then when it's clock out time they try to quell fires so the morning runs smooth and stay late. My job won't let us start before 857 and we can't leave earlier than 523. But if we stay late we have to get out early a diff day. That works in favor of the slackers who drag all day to get some over hour to leave early on their fridays. We work Saturday to Friday work week 7 days. Salary sucks. Paid for 40 hours but used up to 50-80 a week w no overtime. Never take salaried unless it's a good fit. Or you will be milked dry.
In the US, you'd have been fired on the spot. I'm retired, but my entire outlook on work has changed since the top 1% have shown us very clearly that they will abuse both workers and consumers in the worst ways possible, just to line their pockets. My advice to American workers is to give them the least amount possible, for the simple reason that they will always pay you the least amount possible. And don't give them anything. Nothing. Because you can bet your @ss that they'll never give you anything unless it's required by law.
Pretty sure SALARIED means you work 40 hours at least and never have overtime pay. Respecting your supervisor's role is also important, and you should ask to leave early. Super entitled person.
My first programming job was with a small startup computer software and hardware development company. There were five technical people working there under a single engineer/manager. We five, all salaried employees, worked a ton of unpaid over time averaging approximately twelve hours a week. Unless there was a compelling reason, like an external meeting, we would arrive anywhere from 9:00AM to 11:AM and generally stay late to make up a full eight hour day and work overtime if needed. Our manager objected to this and mandated we start at 9:00AM and end the day at 5:00PM. Soon there was a minor tech crisis where a few hours of additional effort would have been necessary to solve/mitigate the problem. The manager noticed all five of us getting ready to leave just as 5:00PM rolled around. He was reminded of his order regarding arrival and departure times and we informed him that we were just obeying his mandate. He was not pleased! The next day, the policy was rescinded with an apology. -dave
I'd love to know who these people are who are okay working unpaid overtime.
Yeah, I have been in a place where one of the managers was crazy about leaving 1 minute early. Nobody listened, and after a while the HR put a stop to the complaints from said boss. It was not my manager - I was under accountancy and HR. My manager (financial and HR manager) was quite irritated that anyone would get all uppity about timekeeping. The company's cost for overtime was already horrendous due to some geezer high up in the chain that had gotten into his/hers head that it was too expensive to hire more people.
I have worked for 15+ years and I have accumulated maybe 6-7 days of overtime (48-56 hours), including travel time. I got all those hours paid and compensated. Il faut travailler pour vivre et non vivre pour travailler.
You would never make it in the medical field. Seems like you just want to stir some s**t to prove your point. Time to find a different job.
By doing the job that's defined in their contract for people who don't give a s**t about them? Hey guess what, even in the medical feild you shouldn't be letting your employers walk all over you. You deserve to be treated fairly and compensated for your work.
Load More Replies...
Nor should they have worked 2 hours overtime; but they did and no one had an issue with it.
Load More Replies... They said they followed the rules but they left 10 minutes early so no, no they did not. There's nothing wrong with leaving at 6 on the dot but don't act like you did nothing wrong when you did. They even stated "My manager was off" , so they knew what they were doing.
Read the paragraph you are commenting on again. They had already worked over 2 hours of uncompensated overtime that week. Leaving ten minutes early wasn't hurting anyone.
Load More Replies... •I am in disbelief about this. She is a salary employee. Not hourly. She keeps talking like she is in an hourly position. Talking about an unpaid lunch. That is how my lunch has been for every salary position I have had in my career. She is coming off like she does not understand how and why salary positions are a thing. Sometimes you must work longer than 40-hour work weeks. You don't get overtime because you are, once again, and salary employee. I work in America so I might have a different mindset, but I don't see what her problem is. In my opinion she is coming off immature and leaving her colleagues to pick up her slack.
You did read the part about this being in Europe? In Germany, you know which hours you are expected to work and how much money you get for those hours. The company can ASK you to work overtime (and you have the right to refuse) - but if you do decide to work overtime, the company is REQUIRED to not only pay that time but also an additional overtime bonus. There is an even higher additional bonus if that overtime happens at night, during weekends, or during vacations. So no - over here, it's not normal to be expected to work beyond your contract hours and not get paid well for that time. If you do unpaid overtime in a company, that is an unofficial agreement between you and the employer that #1 can be stopped by you at any point and #2 could land the company in hot water for breaking labor laws, unless they have proof that you personally decided to do it without coercion and SIGNED OFF on it in writing.
Load More Replies...
So basically after getting pissed off they decided to work their hours and do their job. Yeah that will show them all right.
But just working thier hours meant the company got hours LESS work feom them each week. They had been going far above and beyond and stopped doing so which would negatively affect the company, but there was nothing the company could do becauae they were meeting thier contract requirements.
Load More Replies...
A culture in any community will develop over time.Unpaid overtime is just the same, if employees accept it, the managers will keep pushing until they are pushed back. Once worked in a factory. They didn't pay overtime and expected the job to be done. I walked off the floor, about half an hour before the job was finished, they couldn't believe it. But I said if it's only half an hour you won't mind paying it then eh? We were always paid overtime after that.
I'm a substitute teacher in a U.S public school doing a long term substitute job, approximately 1/3 of the school year. We get paid for 7.5 hours per day. No overtime allowed. We also get paid less than 1/2 a first year teachers' salary, no benefits. After getting burned by administration on my last long-term substitute job, I set some pretty hard boundaries. If I can't do it during my contract hours, then it doesn't get done or another staff member has to do it.
School administrators love to pull the "it's for the kids" line. And I'm not totally heartless; I have done some stuff outside the hours, but it was to meet my own expectations.
Load More Replies... That last paragraph is the real take home message. I had a great manager whose mantra was "lack of planning on your part is not an emergency on ours". She told every client this. Our team also had the best metrics in the company by a long shot. The first time a new client would try to do some project at the last minute, she'd pop out the mantra and send us all home. They'd complain and get switched to another team. However, all of them would come back to us within 2-3 months with a better attitude. They realized if you did things on her timetable, the end product was cheaper, an order of magnitude better, and their own people happier.
My first long term boss (also my father-in-law) had the view that if the client paid enough, overtime was an option. I was young, newly wedd and it was in construction. We racked up insane overtime payments some months due to clients not planning.
Load More Replies... PSA for any USA readers. In the US, being a salaried employee does NOT mean it is "obvious" you don't get overtime pay. It is important to know if your position is salary exempt or non-exempt. This became an issue at one employer I worked at. Nutshell: Exempt is for management level stuff. Typically higher ups getting paid bigger bucks for being available whenever. Me and other 'normal' employees were non-exempt. Or we were after the IRS / labor got on our employer. But we did enjoy no time clock / be an adult and put in 40 hours a week. What is described above would never happen at that job and I really liked the employer overall.
The entire concept of middle management should be set on fire. It serves ZERO worthwhile functions. That's why it's such a defunct field: It's full of people who, due to having no actual use in the flow of work, realize they themselves are expendable and therefore should invent ways to appear useful.
Managers are happy to ask you to manage your time better when it suits them, but then are surprised Pikachu face when you do it to suit yourself.
When I wrangled software at a good-sized USA financial firm, wage-earning "non-professional staff" (clerks etc) punched a time clock and were paid overtime, while higher-status "professional salaried staff" (programmers, managers, et al) worked whatever unpaid overtime their bosses demanded -- in the office, or remotely from home or wherever. That was the corporate reality there
Yes. And, for our non-US pandas, that is legal in the US. There is a classification called “salaried exempt” which means that you are paid a fixed salary (though you may get bonuses) and are exempt from overtime laws. Employers are allowed to use this classification for employees that do a lot of their own decision making in the execution of their jobs. So engineering, IT, management, and the like are often given this classification. In a good organization, they are flexible and don’t closely track your time. If I leave in the middle of the day for a doctor’s appointment, or take off early when I’ve hit a good stopping point, no one cares because I’m getting my projects done on time, and there are also those days when I’m working well over 8 hours. We have teams in other countries and have regular meetings outside of core hours. It’s acknowledged in a good organization that flexibility goes both ways, but it is not enforced by labor laws.
Load More Replies... Time keepers. They are the bane of any good employee. The bad ones abuse the clock and come late take long breaks or many breaks and leave early. The good ones come early and get chewed out for clocking in too soon. Then they can't get to their breaks and work and eat at lunch at their desk. Then when it's clock out time they try to quell fires so the morning runs smooth and stay late. My job won't let us start before 857 and we can't leave earlier than 523. But if we stay late we have to get out early a diff day. That works in favor of the slackers who drag all day to get some over hour to leave early on their fridays. We work Saturday to Friday work week 7 days. Salary sucks. Paid for 40 hours but used up to 50-80 a week w no overtime. Never take salaried unless it's a good fit. Or you will be milked dry.
In the US, you'd have been fired on the spot. I'm retired, but my entire outlook on work has changed since the top 1% have shown us very clearly that they will abuse both workers and consumers in the worst ways possible, just to line their pockets. My advice to American workers is to give them the least amount possible, for the simple reason that they will always pay you the least amount possible. And don't give them anything. Nothing. Because you can bet your @ss that they'll never give you anything unless it's required by law.
Pretty sure SALARIED means you work 40 hours at least and never have overtime pay. Respecting your supervisor's role is also important, and you should ask to leave early. Super entitled person.
My first programming job was with a small startup computer software and hardware development company. There were five technical people working there under a single engineer/manager. We five, all salaried employees, worked a ton of unpaid over time averaging approximately twelve hours a week. Unless there was a compelling reason, like an external meeting, we would arrive anywhere from 9:00AM to 11:AM and generally stay late to make up a full eight hour day and work overtime if needed. Our manager objected to this and mandated we start at 9:00AM and end the day at 5:00PM. Soon there was a minor tech crisis where a few hours of additional effort would have been necessary to solve/mitigate the problem. The manager noticed all five of us getting ready to leave just as 5:00PM rolled around. He was reminded of his order regarding arrival and departure times and we informed him that we were just obeying his mandate. He was not pleased! The next day, the policy was rescinded with an apology. -dave
I'd love to know who these people are who are okay working unpaid overtime.
Yeah, I have been in a place where one of the managers was crazy about leaving 1 minute early. Nobody listened, and after a while the HR put a stop to the complaints from said boss. It was not my manager - I was under accountancy and HR. My manager (financial and HR manager) was quite irritated that anyone would get all uppity about timekeeping. The company's cost for overtime was already horrendous due to some geezer high up in the chain that had gotten into his/hers head that it was too expensive to hire more people.
I have worked for 15+ years and I have accumulated maybe 6-7 days of overtime (48-56 hours), including travel time. I got all those hours paid and compensated. Il faut travailler pour vivre et non vivre pour travailler.
You would never make it in the medical field. Seems like you just want to stir some s**t to prove your point. Time to find a different job.
By doing the job that's defined in their contract for people who don't give a s**t about them? Hey guess what, even in the medical feild you shouldn't be letting your employers walk all over you. You deserve to be treated fairly and compensated for your work.
Load More Replies... Nor should they have worked 2 hours overtime; but they did and no one had an issue with it.
Load More Replies... They said they followed the rules but they left 10 minutes early so no, no they did not. There's nothing wrong with leaving at 6 on the dot but don't act like you did nothing wrong when you did. They even stated "My manager was off" , so they knew what they were doing.
Read the paragraph you are commenting on again. They had already worked over 2 hours of uncompensated overtime that week. Leaving ten minutes early wasn't hurting anyone.
Load More Replies... •I am in disbelief about this. She is a salary employee. Not hourly. She keeps talking like she is in an hourly position. Talking about an unpaid lunch. That is how my lunch has been for every salary position I have had in my career. She is coming off like she does not understand how and why salary positions are a thing. Sometimes you must work longer than 40-hour work weeks. You don't get overtime because you are, once again, and salary employee. I work in America so I might have a different mindset, but I don't see what her problem is. In my opinion she is coming off immature and leaving her colleagues to pick up her slack.
You did read the part about this being in Europe? In Germany, you know which hours you are expected to work and how much money you get for those hours. The company can ASK you to work overtime (and you have the right to refuse) - but if you do decide to work overtime, the company is REQUIRED to not only pay that time but also an additional overtime bonus. There is an even higher additional bonus if that overtime happens at night, during weekends, or during vacations. So no - over here, it's not normal to be expected to work beyond your contract hours and not get paid well for that time. If you do unpaid overtime in a company, that is an unofficial agreement between you and the employer that #1 can be stopped by you at any point and #2 could land the company in hot water for breaking labor laws, unless they have proof that you personally decided to do it without coercion and SIGNED OFF on it in writing.
Load More Replies... So basically after getting pissed off they decided to work their hours and do their job. Yeah that will show them all right.
But just working thier hours meant the company got hours LESS work feom them each week. They had been going far above and beyond and stopped doing so which would negatively affect the company, but there was nothing the company could do becauae they were meeting thier contract requirements.
Load More Replies... 
225
50